1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to improved food products for human consumption and more particularly to nutritionally enriched and stabilized meat products and the method for producing such products.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The process of cooking animal meat products will render out valuable nutrients which often cannot be recovered. A typical beef cut, for example, will loose up to 35% of its original weight when water cooked. While these yield losses can be somewhat ameliorated by prior art techniques including injection with chemicals such as phosphates or massaging with salt, these techniques are not completely satisfactory and often involve chemical additives which are not permitted in food products in any appreciable quantities. The prior art has also expended considerable effort in an attempt to develop processes and formulations which enrich the nutritional value of meat products to offset these cooking losses without adversely affecting the palatability of the treated product.
Many compositions have been previously proposed for introduction into meat products to improve various meat properties such as flavor, texture, tenderness, nutritional value or storage life. Most commonly these materials are injected into a meat mass in liquid form. Among the liquid additives so far employed are enzymes, fatty substances, seasoning materials, vitamins and soluble proteinaceous materials. Representative of processes wherein proteinaceous materials are introduced into meats include: Hawley et al. Pat. No. Re. 30,023 which discloses injecting a salt-tolerant protein isolate; Savage et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,506,455 which discloses the impregnation of raw meat with organic hydropholic materials including proteins: Williams U.S. Pat. No. 3,573,063 which relates to a method of injecting blood or milk into meat products; and Kadone et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,164,589 which discloses a meat pumping process using soy protein isolate. Additionally, it is known to incorporate amino acids and mixtures of amino acids derived from the hydrolysis of natural proteins into meats in order to overcome taste defects and other deficiencies.
Tichy U.S. Pat. No. 2,418,914 describes a process for tenderizing meat by the injection of edible matter which can include particulate materials into the fibrous tissue of raw meat using a high pressure spray which does not produce costly visible openings on the surface of the carcass. Numerous other patents disclose other impregnation methods for the above-disclosed materials which include the use of hollow needles inserted into the meat tissue.
The prior art has not however, achieved a process which economically enriches and stabilizes the nutritional content of meat while simultaneously utilizing otherwise low value animal components and by-products.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an enriched meat product which exhibits improved flavor and tenderness, increased nutritional values and enhanced nutrient and weight stability upon cooking when compared to meat treated by prior art methods.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a process for economically upgrading low quality cuts of meat by introducing insoluble animal protein materials into the tissue of these meat cuts.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a nutritionally enriched meat product which can, for example, be utilized in third world countries having a shortage of high protein source foodstuffs.
These and other objects which will be apparent to one skilled in the art are achieved by providing a method for treating a solid animal meat mass to provide a meat product which exhibits enhanced nutritional values and stability upon cooking, which method comprises introducing into the tissue structure of this solid meat mass an aqueous colloidal dispersion comprising insoluble animal protein particles obtained by comminuting animal products, and a binder which sets sufficiently at cooking temperatures to reduce losses associated with cooking. The present invention also relates to the enriched animal meat product produced by this process.
In the preferred embodiment, a dispersion of colloidal size meat particles from comminuted by-products of the same animal type is treated to give the composition self-binding properties, and this self-binding particulate protein dispersion is then injected into the muscle meat cut to provide uniform distribution of this dispersion in the muscle. The self-binding properties of this dispersion result in binder coagulation at cooking temperatures which serves to stabilize the treated product against nutritional and weight losses. Dispersion injection is preferrably accomplished by needle or needleless injection and can be advantageously followed by a differential pressure cycling treatment which enhances the distribution of the injected materials into the meat tissue.